Forget the Books, Listen to the Flowers
The flowers I grew up with filled my summers with beauty. My mom made it a point to plant them in different spots around our yard. I loved the moss roses and the geraniums, and the borders lined with white and purple alyssum. Tulips appeared in early spring, but where they came from, how they grew, and where they should be planted was a complete mystery to me.
I was the youngest of three girls and considered too little to handle something as important as planting the flowers that made our home beautiful. My sister Sandy always seemed to know what she was doing. I’ll admit it, I was jealous.
After high school, I moved to Madison and lived in apartments for several years. Houseplants became my stand-ins for gardens. I even bought a book called My Favorite Martians’ Hassle-Free Houseplant Book, yes, written by the actual guy from My Favorite Martian. It was full of wacky chapter titles like “Don’t Be a Jewish Mother to Your Plants.” Funny as it was, I still managed to learn a thing or two.
When I bought my first house in California, I had no idea how to tackle outdoor gardening. I winged it for a while, with spotty results, before finally hiring a landscaper. My yard was suddenly bursting with marigolds and petunias. They spread beautifully with the sun, and I realized that if I hadn’t been so intimidated, I could have saved us a lot of money.
In the early ’90s, my husband, our son, and I moved back to Wisconsin. I was eager to plant flowers again, though I didn’t know where to begin. My sister invited me to join her and her daughters on a nursery run. While everyone else wandered around picking plants, I plopped down on the grass with a stack of gardening books, carefully cross-referencing what I thought I needed. My family thought this was hilarious. My sister finally explained that the plants themselves came with tags that told you everything you needed to know. Imagine that!
It never occurred to me that flowers could basically write their own user manuals. I often felt like the gardening gene skipped right over me. Getting my hands in the dirt felt like trying to read a foreign language.
Eventually, I started copying what was already in my yard. The shady spots filled with hostas and impatiens, while containers and hanging baskets gave me the color I craved. Little by little, I figured out the difference between annuals and perennials, mulched without fear, and even recognized weeds before yanking out the wrong thing.
But Colorado brought new challenges: high desert, clay soil, and almost no rain. Containers on my covered deck became my salvation. This time, I skipped the books and just asked questions, and, in a way, let the flowers tell me what they needed.
Gardening will probably always feel like a mystery to me. My method? Trial and error, mostly error. But at least I finally learned one thing: flowers don’t care if you know what you’re doing. They’ll grow anyway, unless, of course, you actually do kill them. In that case, well…plastic plants are having a real comeback.
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